Belarus-Russia spat clears way for potash plunge

Down to earth

Reuters

Rio's asset sale woes another case of bad timing

Lowering the sales

Business Standard

Angry aluminium users should sue the Fed as well

Cue the lawyers

Shell faces reality: it's not about the barrels

Shell shocked

Pot shot

Shale trailblazer leaves a world awash with crude

Patient pioneer

Copper will eventually be safer than iron ore

Rock, paper, copper

Novatek wins big in Russian energy deal-a-palooza

In gas they trust

Shale offers China exit from US dependency curse

Drill, comrade, drill

Matter of the Universe

Efficiency revolution would put shale to shame

Barrels of savings

Frackers ignore German beer angst at their peril

Bier and loathing

Solar subsidies don't merit costly trade war

Scorched earth tactics

Oil probe shows the slippery nature of prices

Crude artifice

Oil price collusion would be a Libor-scale scandal

Bigger than Libor

BP's Russian honeymoon isn't the end of the story

Honeymooners

New oil dynamics may challenge crude growth logic

Bargain Brent

Tank half full

Iron miners need to know when to quit digging

Dig or no dig

Commodities bear market is a shifty beastAs an investment, commodities underperformed equities in 2012. But the bear market in raw materials is a shifty beast. The most significant fall has been in commodity price volatility, and thatâ€™s not a bad thing for anyone.The underperformance is real, but should be qualified in two important ways. First, oil and gas has been much stronger than other commodities. Since January 2012, the commodity underperformance, relative to the MSCI World Index of stocks, was 18 per cent for Thomson Reuters/Jeffries CRB index, and a more modest 13 percent for the S&P GSCI, in which oil has a heavier weight.Second, the prices of the two most important commodities for the world economy are high by historic standards. At nearly $119 a barrel, Brent crude is comfortably above last yearâ€™s record average price of $112. Iron ore, which isnâ€™t in either index because trading is still limited, has rallied sharply from its Septem

Material underperformance

Royal Dutch Shell&rsquo;s latest results show there is a flip side to shale nirvana. The combination of vast new supplies and a continuing lack of export capacity have kept oil and gas prices down in North America. The cost advantage for the region&rsquo;s manufacturers might excite the Davos set, but the much-hyped shale revolution also creates relative losers.

Kevin Allison